In U.S. Pat. No. 2,840,459, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is disclosed a process and apparatus for the continuous extraction of oils and/or soluble materials from particulate material and comprised of a large vessel forming a vapor tight enclosure in which there is disposed a rotor including a plurality of cells and constituting a rotary extractor.
The rotor of the rotary extractor is comprised of a rotor shaft having upper and lower flanges to which are mounted radially-extending upper cell support I-beams and lower cell door hinge support I-beams to which are mounted vertically-disposed inner and outer walls and radially and vertically-disposed paired side walls with a gabled cap fixedly positioned on the top of the paired side walls to assist in the abrupt transfer of liquids from a preceding cell to an immediately succeeding cell and also to prevent material from falling between adjoining paired side walls.
As more clearly illustrated in U.S. Pat. no. 4,125,379, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, each cell is comprised of radially and vertically-disposed paired side walls inclined inwardly toward the bottom portion of the respective cells to minimize tendency of solids to cling thereto. At present, the cells are fabricated complete in a fabrication shop and shipped to the job site for field erection. As a result of the massive size of each cell structure, substantial handling and shipping problems arise including high freight rates due to high void volume, special transportation requirements, damage during transportation and handling, etc.